Realisation
by OakStone730
Summary: Harry likes Draco. Draco likes Harry. Ron just wanted to help. This is a remix of Simeysgirl's Perception story and was written for HD Remix on LJ. I highly recommend you read her original story before reading this one. Warnings: pre-Slash, HP/DM, minor mention of RW/HG


A Remix of Perception by Simeysgirl. Read her wonderful ficlet first, this is a follow-up to it.

OOOooOOOOOOOoo

The streetlights were just flickering on as Harry headed at a nervous clip towards Guiseppe's. Sliding his hand into the pocket of his jeans, he was reassured by the feel of the parchment that Draco had sent. The note hadn't said anything about why he wanted to meet. He certainly hadn't given indication that he wanted to meet as he'd left their office yesterday with nothing more than a casual wave of his hand.

Harry scowled at the memory: Draco had walked away like he always did. Harry had almost called out to get Draco to stay a little longer but hadn't been able to think of anything to say. He never could, he knew if he tried he would turn into the stammering fool that he always was around Draco. And then Draco would give him that sardonic look with his grey eyes that made Harry feel as if he was still as immature as he'd been as a fourth-year, asking Cho to the Yule Ball.

Then the owl had arrived from Draco this morning and turned him into a nervous wreck. He'd spent what seemed like an hour in his wardrobe, until he had finally decided to wear the jeans and black turtleneck sweater that Ginny had insisted he buy the last time she'd dragged him out shopping. _Honestly, Harry, do you really expect anyone to notice you, let alone Draco, with what you have on?_ she had said shaking her head in exasperation. He was sure the sweater was too snug, but Ginny had just laughed and shook her head when he'd complained.

Checking the time, he cursed. He was going to be too early and would have nothing to do but sit and drink to calm his nerves. It definitely wouldn't be a good idea to get half-pissed before Draco even arrived. Forcing himself to stop he turned to check his reflection in the shop window. Maybe he should have worn the jacket and tie? But then it would look like he thought it was a date, and it was highly unlikely that Draco had meant dinner to be a date, he probably just — Harry raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. He didn't know why Draco wanted to meet, but it would be the first time he'd be spending time with Draco without the entire office watching them.

Draco never wanted to do anything with him, of that Harry was certain. He cringed at the memory of Ron's face yesterday after Harry had watched Draco walk away. Ron had given Harry a sad shake of his head and turned back to face his desk. More than anything, Harry regretted his drunken confession to Ron weeks ago that he fancied Draco. What had been the point? It was not as though anything would ever come of it, Draco wasn't interested. Well, at least Harry hadn't thought Draco was until today's owl.

He checked the time again, great, now he now was in danger of being late. Dodging past the dog walkers and couples on the pavement he was finally at the restaurant. Through the window he saw Draco sitting at a table in the corner, easily identifiable by his blond hair. As he pulled open the door, Harry dared to hope that maybe tonight would be the night his luck changed.

**Draco**  
The words on the parchment glowed green, Draco lowered his wand and frowned as he considered the significance of the colour. That the message was false wasn't a surprise to Draco: as soon as he'd read the brief message he had questioned its validity. Harry was not in the habit of inviting Draco out to supper. Two questions remained: who had sent it, and what was their intent?

Draco examined the note for additional clues and found none, setting down the paper he contemplated who the sender could be. It was obviously someone ignorant of the fact that Harry and Draco were not in the habit of seeing each other outside of the office. Draco scowled as he considered how Harry wouldn't even _talk _to him other than office business.

He knew that he was expected to report the fake note to the Ministry, but had no plans to do so. Whoever had sent it was clearly targeting Draco specifically. He would deal with the perpetrator and no one need be the wiser. It had taken years of hard work to get where he was in the Ministry and he wasn't about to let anything give someone pause to think that he shouldn't be where he was.

Draco scanned the brief message again. It was brief, but perhaps that was a clue in itself, Draco thought as he held the parchment up to the candle to check for watermarks. The creator of the note had been careful not to include too much detail.

He allowed himself a brief self-congratulations at recognising the trick. He contemplated the restaurant named in the note. The Muggle restaurant named was an interesting choice. Draco was certain it was the same restaurant that Weasley had recently taken Granger for her birthday. It was just a few streets down from Harry's house. No doubt it was selected to make it seem more likely that the invite came from Harry. Being in a Muggle neighbourhood, it would be a challenge to apprehend whoever sent the note, but Draco was confident that he could handle any situation that could arise.

Turning to the mirror he assessed his outfit critically. He had chosen to wear charcoal grey trousers paired with a dark blue cashmere sweater. They would give him the freedom of movement he needed if there was any kind of altercation. Pushing up his sleeve, he checked the straps on his back-up wand. Satisfied, he slipped on the leather jacket and checked the pockets to make sure the Muggle smoke bombs were still there. The smoke bombs were not as effective as the Weasley's Peruvian Instant Darkness but the powder wasn't sanctioned for use around Muggles.

He checked the time, he wanted to be in place well before the time designated in the note. It would give him time to secure the best — safest — table and confirm the alternative exits out of the restaurant.

**Ron**  
Hermione went bustling back into the kitchen and Ron stared at his plate in miserable disbelief. Corned beef. How could she not know he hated corned beef? He had always steered away from it when it was served at Hogwarts. When Hermione had promised him a special treat he thought she was going to put on the special outfit he'd bought for her for her birthday last month at the Naughty Witch Lingerie & Fetishwear shop.

He heard her coming back and hastily pulled out his wand and vanished the offending meat. The smell still lingered but there wasn't time to spell it away. Hermione started to sit down at the table and looked over at his plate.

Hermione smiled when she saw the meat was gone, "You already finished all of your corned beef? Let me get you some more." She grabbed his plate and went back into the kitchen. Ron banged his head against the table, he was starving, horny and she was going to make him eat the damn meat.

The sound of the clock striking the hour distracted him enough from his misery to make him realise that he'd forgotten about Harry and Malfoy. It was eight o'clock, and he wondered how long it would take them to realise they'd been tricked. Hopefully, Harry wouldn't be too mad at Ron if he figured out that Ron was behind the notes. He didn't care what Malfoy thought, he'd done it for Harry.

Ron shook his head. _Why_ Harry was hung up on Malfoy he couldn't figure out, but he was tired of having his best friend mooning after the git. If something came of this it would be worth Harry's anger. And, if nothing came of it then hopefully Harry would finally move on and forget about Malfoy's arse.

**Draco**  
A man with messy black hair passed by the window and Draco felt the first qualm of real concern. Whoever this person was, they were going to attempt to pass themselves off as Harry. This took what Draco had hoped would be someone attempting to prank him into a whole new level if they were actually using glamours or Polyjuice in an attempt to look like Potter.

The restaurant door pulled open and Harry, or at least someone looking like Harry, walked in and headed straight towards the table where Draco was sitting. He was glad he had got the first glimpse through the window so he could school his face appropriately. The false Harry was such a perfect replica of Harry that it had to be Polyjuice, which meant that he or she was committing the Class X offence of impersonating an Auror.

The other man gave Draco a tentative smile nod as he pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. "Evening, Draco. Nice place."

Draco was reluctantly impressed at the imposter; he had Harry's voice down perfectly. The man had even mastered Harry's mannerisms, Draco thought as he watched the other man nervously run his fingers through the black hair. He had to quell a moment of jealousy. The criminal was able to feel what Harry's hair felt like and Draco never would.

The imposter gave him a curious look and he realised he hadn't responded. Draco decided to see how hard it would be trap the fake Harry in a lie. He nodded, "Weasley talked about it last month, didn't he? He took Granger here for their anniversary."

"It was for her birthday, but yeah, same place." The miscreant was looking around surreptitiously and Draco suspected he was checking to make sure his accomplices were in place.

"That's right, birthday." Draco nodded in agreement, not altogether surprised that he'd been corrected. The perpetrator had obviously done his research. "Nice birthday present he got her."

The man looked at Draco with such a look of disbelief that he forgot for a second that it wasn't the real Harry. "Are you kidding me? I get nauseous just thinking about it. I mean, urg, Hermione is my friend. I don't want to think about her putting on-"

"It was sarcasm, Potter." Draco said hastily as he remembered with horror what Weasley had actually given his wife for her birthday.

The other man seemed to laugh in relief and Draco had to fight his outrage as he remembered that the imposter must have some association with the Auror department. No one else could know what Ronald Weasley had purchased and so tactlessly displayed for his co-workers. Someone on the inside would also explain how the subject had got so close to Harry as to get one of his hairs.

Fortunately the waitress came up to them and it allowed Draco to temper his anger as they went through the formality of ordering. He noted that the imposter didn't know that Harry's favourite Italian dish was _spaghetti aglio e olio_. His first mistake, Draco recognised with some satisfaction, it wouldn't be his last, he was sure.

"Didn't feel like having your favourite?"

The other man fumbled his fork and dropped it, Draco watched in suspicion as the other man bent down to pick it up, the man somehow managed to drop his napkin as he was picking up his fork, when he finally sitting up again he stuttered, "I, erm, just thought that it, well, garlic, you know..."

He seemed quite red in the face and Draco was suspicious until he put it together, the imposter must have covered taking another dose of Polyjuice after 'accidentally' dropping his fork and napkin. His respect for his opponent was growing. A very clever move masking the potion taking in such a manner.

It was time to find out what the game was though. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

'Harry' choked on the water he had just swallowed. "What?"

Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Why did you want to meet? You sent me an owl saying you wanted to talk to me about something?"

"What? I mean, I didn't send you an owl." 'Harry' was looking at Draco in wide-eyed disbelief:  
Harry was never such a good actor, Draco reminded himself. "You sent me an owl, saying that you wanted to talk to me."

"I did no such thing." Draco raised an eyebrow, challenging the imposter to slip up again.

"You did send me a note! I have it right here."

The man slid his hand under the table and Draco had his wand out before the other man knew he was reaching for it. "Stop," Draco hissed quietly so the Muggles at the next table wouldn't hear him. "You are going to bring your hand back up on the table where I can see it."

"Draco, what is wrong with you?" The imposter was giving him a feigned puzzled look and still hadn't brought his hand back up where Draco could see it.

"Your hand, on the table, now." He was holding his wand flat on the table to prevent the Muggles from seeing it, but he lifted it just enough to warn the imposter that he meant business. If the man was as clever as Draco suspected, he would know that there were any number of wordless spells he could cast with no Muggle being any the wiser.

The man's face went perfectly still and he looked from Draco's wand to his face and back again.

"Draco, I am going to put my hand on the table, and then you are going to explain what exactly is going on." He spoke the words very carefully as if afraid that Draco had gone around the bend.

Draco waited as the man had both hands resting flat on the table surface.

"Good, now you are going to tell me who you are and you will tell me what you want." Draco dared to take his eyes off the man for a second to look around the room. "Do you have any of your collaborators in the room?"

"Draco, what have you been drinking? You sent me an owl-"

"I'm waiting."

"I'm Harry Potter. We work together at the Ministry. You sent-"

"Stop. I told you, I know you are lying. I received an owl to meet here. An owl purportedly from Harry Potter but one that my tests revealed had not been written by him. Who are you?"

"What tests?"

Draco laughed at the man's ignorance. "A basic Auror detection spell that reveals if the person who wrote an owl used a charm to mask their handwriting as someone else's. And your owl failed the test."

"Of course, it failed I didn't-" The imposter's face went suddenly blank and Draco realised he had him. He seemed to be trying to think of his options and Draco was wondering what he had come up with when Harry's — the false Harry's eyes sparkled in concealed laughter. "You don't think I'm me, do you?"

"I know you're not Harry Potter." Draco was becoming annoyed with the man's insistence on playing his role.

"What makes you so sure that I'm not Harry Potter?"

"Because he would never invite me out to supper, that's why." Draco saw something twitch on the imposter's face and knew that the man had recognised the flaw in his plan. Finally, Draco was getting somewhere.

"I have the owl that I received from you in my jeans pocket. Will you let me get it?"

"Absolutely not. I want to be able to see your hands at all times." Draco was amused that the other man thought he could be tricked so easily.

The man nodded, a hint of a smile flickered across his face as he said, "Then, you'll have to reach into my pocket and pull out the note."

Draco narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "And why would I want to do that?"

"To prove that I got an owl just like you did, and so that you can test it to see if the same person wrote both notes."

Suspecting a trick, Draco considered the request: it was highly unlikely that there could be anything in the man's pocket to harm him. There was little the man could hope to gain by having Draco pull out the paper, if there even was one. Only one way to find out, Draco realised.

"Put your hands together." Draco motioned with his chin. The imposter seemed amused but did as he was told without comment. Draco waited until the man's fingers were interlaced. "Which pocket?"

"The right."

Draco shifted to the chair next to the man's right side and with his one hand still on his wand he cautiously lowered his left arm and slid it under the tablecloth. Not taking his eyes off him, Draco ran his hand up the man's leg and with careful fingers felt for the pocket to his jeans.

Draco could feel the warmth of the man through the rough material, it was relief when he felt the opening to the pocket.

Harry's face — or rather the imposter's face — had gone still and Draco eyed him cautiously as he saw the man chew on his lip, his cheeks flush red. Not deterred, he pushed his fingers into the pocket. It was a tight fit and he couldn't push his fingers far enough into the pocket.

"Shift forward, my fingers don't fit." Draco didn't expect the man to suddenly shift as he stretched his legs out under the table with a slight moan. Draco shoved his fingers farther in, stretching them until he finally felt the paper. He pushed in harder until he could scissor the edge of the paper between his fingers. His hand was still being caught by tightness of the fabric.

"It's too tight," he complained.

"If you keep doing that it is likely to get tighter, not less," the man sounded more amused than annoyed and Draco scowled at him as he pressed his fingers farther in to free the paper. Did the imposter really think he could distract Draco with innuendos? Draco gave a grunt of satisfaction when the paper finally came free. Now he could get to the bottom of things.

The man's lip twitched as if he was about to say something, but had changed his mind. _He knows I'm on to him,_ Draco thought with some satisfaction and unfolded the note just as the waitress appeared with their entrees.

Draco sat silently as she fussed with setting down the plates. In exasperation he waved her off when she picked up a cheese grater from the tray, offering to grate cheese on their food. She left with a huff and Draco stared down at the suspect paper.

"Cast it," the imposter said with a motion of his hand. "Under the table, no one will see."

Draco raised his eyebrow skeptically but the table was in the corner and it wasn't likely anyone could see what he was doing as he slid his wand under the table and cast. Sure enough, the green light flared briefly under the cover of the tablecloth.

"What does that prove? You could easily have created this document as you did the other one."

"Draco, it's me. Harry. How can I prove it?"

Draco considered the question. He could have the man show his wand, but Harry Potter's wand was widely recognised. A clever wandmaker could easily replicate it.

"A challenge question, ask me a challenge question. Something only you and I would know," the man said in exasperation.

Draco felt the first tightening feeling of alarm at the man's offer which, on the surface, was an unlikely one for a Polyjuiced Harry Potter to make. Anyone who'd researched Harry and Draco would know that there was much that had happened between them that not been shared with the Wizarding world at large. Their classmates knew many of these stories though, Draco considered carefully, although most had not revealed their schoolyard skirmishes to the press.

Draco hesitated. There was truly only one event that Harry Potter and he had shared that no one else living knew about. Slowly drew his finger from his clavicle to mid-abdomen. "I have three scars that run from here to here. What are they from?"

The man in Harry Potter's body looked at him in horror. "It left a permanent scar?"

Draco felt another thread of alarm at the man's response but he refused to believe it really could be Potter. "What are the scars from?" he pressed, expecting the man to fail the test.

"Sectumsempra," Harry whispered in a shaky voice. "In the bathroom, sixth year. I didn't know that it had left a scar—"

There was a roaring sound in his ears and the room spun before his eyes as he realised without a doubt that the man was Harry. Draco replayed everything that he had said and done since the man had walked into the restaurant. He must have looked and sounded like an idiot.

Draco shook his head, still not wanting to believe. "Potter?"

Harry nodded in agreement. "Potter."

"You're really are you?" Draco was so shaken he didn't know what to make of the realisation. "And, you didn't send me the note?"

"No, and you didn't send me the one that I got." Harry's face was filled with concern.

Draco looked at him suspiciously. "How do you —"

"You just tested it, you git." Harry shook his head. "I got your note and it never occurred to me to check to make sure it was real."

"Well, like I said, you wouldn't ask me out so I knew —"

"You mean, you wouldn't want me to ask you out," Harry said glumly as he reached for his glass.

Everything in the room seemed to freeze, as Draco looked at Harry in disbelief. "What do you mean by that? You are the one that never talks to me unless it is something about work. You hardly have said anything to me since Hitchen's birthday."

"You are the one that walks away from me, never give me a chance to chat you up," Harry said, with a bitter laugh. "Every time I finally got the nerve to talk to you, you would just walk away."

Draco stared at Harry, his mind racing through every encounter he'd had with the man in the past three months. He had walked away from Harry, afraid of the rejection he was certain he would, again, receive. He shook his head. "We've certainly made a mess of everything, haven't we?"

Whatever Harry was going to say was interrupted by the waitress. "Is there a problem with your meals? You haven't eaten anything —"

Harry shook his head. "There's no problem. Something, erm, just came up though. We need to leave. Can we get these boxed up?"

Draco was going to object that he wanted a chance to explain why he wanted to stay and have the meal. But Harry clearly was annoyed with him and wanted to leave. The waitress shrugged and picked up both plates and walked away.

"You don't have to go —"

"Oh, I do. Like I told the waitress, something's come up and we need to take care of it." With that Harry reached over and took Draco's hand and pulled it under the table.

**Ron**  
Picking dismally at the meat on his plate, Ron hardly paid attention to Hermione as she talked about the meetings she had that day.

"So, as I was coming back from the meeting with the Committee United for the Humane Treatment of Elves, I bumped into Lydia Freeman," Hermione said as she forked more beef on his plate. "You know, she is engaged to Gawthorp in your department. Anyway, I was rather surprised when she wanted to know where you had bought my birthday present."

"Oh." The nauseous feeling in Ron's stomach was no longer from the corned beef as Hermione narrowed her eyes at him with a look that made him feel they were back in Hogwarts and he had been caught copying her Charms essays.

"You can imagine my surprise when I learned that she knew about the little outfit you bought me for my birthday because you showed it to your entire department." Hermione's voice was clipped, like it always was when she was angry. "It seems that everyone got to see, and touch it."

Ron tried to protest but Hermione continued, "I knew that I had to find a way to make you appreciate that sharing intimate details of our marriage with your co-workers was not acceptable. And, knowing you as long as I have, I know there are two things you pay attention to — sex and your next meal."

Ron gulped hard and tried to breathe as Hermione continued. "So, consider this fair warning, Ronald Weasley, that if you ever show purchases from our favourite fetish shop to your co-workers that not only will you never see me in them, you will be eating corned beef every night for a month."


End file.
